American Gangster

Next, while we are on the subject of gangster movies, I want to take some time to talk about a more modern movie, and maybe even, if I have the attention span, make some comparative analysis between the Godfather and this movie. But I probably won't though.
Anyway, in case you haven't seen American Gangster, while its not as big a crime as not seeing the Godfather, I still greatly recommend it to you if you have any legitimate taste in good quality movies. But I'll show you a short scene from the movie, one that really captures the action and raw coolness that this movie exhibits.


American Gangster is a movie that is based on the real life events of the famous black gangster, Frank Lucas. This man was a drug lord back in the 1960s and the late 1970's. He was mainly active in Harlem, New York. What makes this man so famous, what makes it necessary to make an entire movie on him, was the fact that he dealt one on one with the top heroin dealers in South Asia. This is different then your average gangster (if there is one), in that he eliminated the "middle man", is didn't have anyone buy the heroin for him and then he would have to buy it from them. This gave the man lots of reputation as being ruthless, and it was also very hard to track what he was doing, because he was usually on the scene, making sure all the drugs were concealed correctly. Frank would hide the heroin inside of coffins of dead soldiers' bodies being shipped back to the United States after the Vietnam War.
This movie is shot from two different points of view, Frank Lucas himself, and the cop that was on his tail, Richie Roberts. The movie tries to capture the personal lives of both of these men, how Frank was trying to live up to his mentor and teacher, the "wise" gangster, Bumpy Johnson; how Richie was dealing with many problems in his domestic life including a wife who wanted a divorce, temptations about keeping a suitcase he found filled with money, and his intimate relations with his female colleagues.